


Five Phone Calls for Maggie That Cemented a Friendship Plus That One Time Sophie Needed a Favor

by Tassos



Category: Leverage
Genre: Community: fandom_stocking, Developing Friendships, Female Friendship, Friendship, Gen, Phone Calls & Telephones, five things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-05
Updated: 2014-01-05
Packaged: 2018-01-07 15:30:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1121515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tassos/pseuds/Tassos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Maggie and Sophie became friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Phone Calls for Maggie That Cemented a Friendship Plus That One Time Sophie Needed a Favor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AstridV](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstridV/gifts).



> Written for astrid_v for fandom stocking. Happy holidays!

After Kiev, a low level anxiety follows Maggie home. For the first week she checks and rechecks the windows and doors before going to bed, her own home feeling surreal after the excitement of the last week, and then lays awake unable to sleep, her mind a hum with swirling thoughts. 

What's keeping her up is not being arrested and nearly dying in an elevator with Alexander sniveling on the floor and Nate beside her. No, what's keeping her up is that stupid kiss and when the embarrassment gets to strong to think about any more, how haggard Nate looked.

Maggie can't help but worry about him. She wants to make sure he's okay but she doesn't know where he and his team are based anymore, and she doesn't know how to contact them either. All she has is the go-bag Parker packed for her with a fake passport, toothpaste and explosive cream, that she can't bring herself to unpack.

Slowly, however, life returns to normal. Weeks turn into a month, and work smooths off the edges of Maggie's concern. Still, late at night she still worries.

Then the phone rings.

* * *

1\. The Maltese Falcon Call

Maggie, just stepped through the door, juggling her bag and the mail, when the house phone rings. "Hello!" she says, somewhat breathlessly.

"Hello, Maggie." She stops short in surprise at the voice on the other end of the line.

"Sophie! What a surprise!"

"I'm so sorry to call out of the blue like this," Sophie says, and Maggie has a sinking feeling.

"Oh my God, is everything all right?" she asks, thinking of her absence from the team the last time she saw them.

"No, it bloody well isn't!" Sophie says fiercely, and Maggie's heart stops for a minute sure someone (Nate) is dead, but Sophie keeps going, happy to jump over the niceties and straight to the point. "Nate let himself be arrested! When I had a perfectly good escape plan for everyone."

"How … inconsiderate of him," Maggie says, trying to get her head around Nate, arrested. "What happened?"

Maggie doesn't follow all of the details, and she's sure she doesn't need to know them so she doesn't ask, but what she hears underneath Sophie's outrage is that wherever Sophie had been soul searching, she had come back for Nate only to have him taken away.

"He does that," Maggie shakes her head into the phone. "He thinks he knows what's best and then make decisions for the both of you if you don't catch him at it."

"It's bloody annoying," says Sophie, and Maggie knows exactly what she means.

Sophie tells he she'll keep her posted, and calls twice more that summer, once to complain about Nate knocking down her first escape plan and then once to tell her that he's out and they took down the warden of the private prison he was in, too.

* * *

2\. The King George Call

Maggie gets two mysterious emails over the next few months. The first takes her a few reads to decode the swapped names from the supposed family friend that tells her everyone is safe and well. The second she opens with a smile and grins when she listens to the attached mp3 of "Kenneth Crane" crooning a love song.

It's fairly late when the phone rings again, and Maggie picks up to hear Sophie on the line.

"Hello, Maggie," Sophie greets her. 

"Sophie! How are you?" Maggie sets down her book and smiles, happy to hear from her.

"Oh, you know, living the glamorous life," Sophie replies, but there's something off about it. Maggie glances at the clock. It's almost eleven, which it's awfully late on the East Coast. If that's where Sophie is.

"Are you out on a job?"

"Just wrapped up. We're at the airport now. Calling on my brand new phone."

"I see. How did it go?" Maggie isn't sure of the etiquette here. Should she ask what they did? Where they are?

"Oh, well enough. We conned the bad guy, set him up for prison." Sophie says without any enthusiasm, and that sense of something being off doesn't go away.

"Sophie," Maggie says softly. "Are you okay?"

On the other end, Sophie sighs, and Maggie would swear, that was a sniff she heard. "Just brought back a lot of unresolved memories. Visiting home, old friends, old cons. Everyone else wants to ask a thousand questions but it's done and in the past, and we all agreed that what's in the past stays in the past. I really called to see how you were doing!" she adds brightly. "How is Los Angeles? Come across any forgeries recently?"

Maggie would bet good money that the "everyone else" she's referring to is Nate, but she obliges and gives Sophie a distraction. Work has been only moderately interesting recently. No forgeries at the exhibit she is currently consulting with, another private collector showing off his works.

"How often do collectors collaborate with museums like that?" Sophie asks.

"It's not uncommon, but definitely not run-of-the-mill either," says Maggie. "Most collectors when they get to a certain age feel the need to leave their mark on the local art community as part of their legacy. It usually precedes a donation, though half these men are cheapskates despite owning a fortune."

"Hmm," Sophie sounds interested. "How would you do a show from an anonymous benefactor?"

Maggie can't help the slightly disbelieving laugh. "Museums won't touch stolen art."

"But hypothetically." Sophie doesn't sound bothered in the least.

Maggie can't help it; she's curious. "Just what do you have in your collection?"

* * *

3\. The San Lorenzo Call

After the assassination of Rebecca Ibanez makes international news, Maggie can barely sit still. It has to be part of the con, right? Sophie didn't assume the identity of a candidate's fiancee -- and how did she pull that off? -- without having someone watching her back? Maggie went to bed, telling herself she was fine. Just fine.

And then she lay awake wondering what had happened, what Nate was _thinking_ and why hadn't anyone called her yet.

She gets the call two days later.

"Oh, thank God," Maggie says when she hears Sophie's voice. "I knew you couldn't be dead, but I wasn't sure --"

"It was marvelous, wasn't it?" Sophie bubbles. "I do love a good death scene."

"What were you doing?" Maggie asks before she thinks better of it.

But Sophie is already launching into and explanation about freeing political prisoners, taking down and underworld financier, and stealing an election. "It's the dirtiest thing I've ever done. I feel absolutely filthy about it," she says.

"Better you than me," Maggie says.

"Yes. Well, about that." Sophie's voice suddenly turns coy, and Maggie immediately tenses up again.

"What?" she asks again, this time with dread.

"I slept with Nate."

The pause is heavy as Maggie's brain does another shift. "You weren't already sleeping with him?" is the first thing that pops out of her mouth.

"What? No! Do you know what a neurotic mess he is? Wait, forget I asked, of course you do."

Maggie laughs. "Had his barriers up, did he?"

"It was like storming the bloody castle, getting him to open up and accept me on even footing."

"It sounds like you were doing a lot of that this week."

"Posing with Michael helped."

Maggie shakes her head at the fact that Sophie is the dead pretend fiancee of the president of San Lorenzo. "So." She sits back, surprised at her own curiosity, but really, she's known Nate had moved on ever since she met Sophie two years ago. "Was it good? Did he do that thing with his tongue?"

Sophie laughs, the sound happy, and Maggie is so happy for her and only a little wistful as Sophie dishes the dirt.

* * *

4\. The Grave Danger Call

The emails from Sophie become more frequent, checking in that all is well, often with short stories of Parker, Hardison and Eliot's antics, and equal amounts griping and joy about Nate. Maggie finds her self replying to them with links to the galleries she's working with, sometimes news articles of businessmen getting arrested, or outrageous art she comes across. Occasionally she sends a questions about security systems. It's easy and refreshingly uncomplicated to talk to Sophie, and Maggie finds herself looking forward to the next email.

She's unprepared then for when Sophie calls to tell her that Hardison almost died.

"We almost didn't get to him in time," she says, as she winds down. Sophie sounds _tired_. 

"Hey, you did get to him," Maggie says.

"Yes. Yes, we did. And we got the Wickett's in the end," Sophie says darkly, a reminder for Maggie that Sophie is no stranger to violence in her world. "Parker's a bit of a mess right now," she adds more softly. "She's gone off to one of her hidey-holes, though Hardison said he saw her in the bar before she disappeared."

"She'll be okay," Maggie says, not sure what else to add beyond reassurance. That's all she can do from her house in LA. Sophie needs her to listen more than anything else, though, and Maggie can do that.

* * *

5\. The Girls' Night Out Call

Maggie has tears streaming from her eyes, she's laughing so hard. It started about the time Sophie opened her phone call with "You met Tara, right?" and went on through Tara grifting wrong, and giving Sophie crap for doing a perfectly fine job sneaking into a party at the Venezuelan Consulate.

The giggles started and only got worse as Sophie spun her story of her first night out in weeks that ended up being all about work. Maggie wondered if she knew how it sounded to someone like her, with her day job and very unglamorous life that only occasionally included bombs. 

"So there we are, with a bomb, Hardison's telling us how to diffuse it as if we have any idea what he's talking about so we ended up just shoving it out the window. Parker told everyone it was fireworks."

"And they believed that?"

"People will believe the most reassuring lies," says Sophie with sigh. "I ended up having to get my drinks back at the bar, because Tara got the boy in the end."

"And what about you. Did you get your "boy" in the end?"

"I wish. Turns out Nate and the boys were busy dealing with the Irish mob all night."

Maggie laughs again. "I don't know whether to believe you or not."

"Oh believe it. No one's plans stuck. I just wanted a little break, you know?"

"You want a break you should come out here," Maggie says. "I can guarantee that a night out in LA with me won't be nearly as exciting."

"That's not a bad idea," says Sophie. "I should come and visit you. It's been ages since we've seen each other."

Maggie had thrown it out there, more as a comment on her own life than as an actual suggestions, but now that Sophie is taking it seriously she really likes the idea.

"Yeah, you should. I've got a guest room here. We can go out to a wine bar. And I promise no crashing any consulates or bombs."

"Maybe we could visit a museum," Sophie suggests.

Maggie laughs again. "Only if you promise not to steal anything."

* * *

+1 (Not) The Last Dam Call

"Maggie?"

"Sophie!" Maggie grins, but at Sophie's next words, she goes still.

"Maggie, we need you."

"Of course. Anything. What happened?"

After Sophie tells her, Maggie catches the next flight out.


End file.
